


crème de la crème

by sublime_jumbles



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: Belly Kink, Belly Rubs, F/M, Kinda, Overeating, Stuffing, Touching by Proxy, Weight Gain, chubby!Ned, chubby!kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 03:53:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5651563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sublime_jumbles/pseuds/sublime_jumbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I look forward to taking good care of you after we roll you home.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He laughs, running a hand down the front of his shirt. “I’m hoping these buttons hold out.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Chuck smiles, a little wicked. “I’m not.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	crème de la crème

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeeandfeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandfeathers/gifts).



> a belated birthday/holiday gift for corinne, who has loyally waited for literally a year for me to finish this. HERE IT IS, PAL. I HOPE U LIKE IT <3

Chuck has been ready for approximately twenty minutes when Ned shuffles into the living room, plucking at the buttons on his tuxedo shirt and straightening the slim line of his tie.

“Does this look okay?” he asks, and Chuck bites back a grin.

The tuxedo, like most of Ned’s clothes these days, is looking snug. The buttons of his shirt must be pulling under his tie, she thinks, and his muffin top spills over the waistband of his trousers. The seams of the trousers strain against his thighs, thicker now than when he bought the suit, and his jacket hangs open, framing his soft belly. He squirms as she takes him in, hunching his shoulders forward. “Well?”

“You look wonderful,” she tells him.

“Not too tight?” he asks, tugging at his tie.

He’s gotten considerably softer in the past year – Chuck has watched his waistline swell from skinny-boy tummy bulge to the roll of pudge that currently sits on his hipbones, from placing the smallest pull on his T-shirts to the way it’s begun to push over the top of his apron. His extra pounds don’t bother her – they’re cute, and she loves seeing Ned looking healthy and content. Besides, she’s read that people gain weight when they’re happy, and she figures Ned is living proof.

“You’re sure?” he asks, cheeks pink.

She nods, standing up. “I’m sure. Come on, we’ll be late.”

She reaches for his hand, and he draws away instinctively before noticing her gloves. She grins, wiggling her fingers for him. “I thought a black tie event was a good excuse to get out Lily’s old opera gloves.”

The event in question is a holiday gala for chefs in the area to show off their expertise and get to know each other, and Ned has spent the past weeks perfecting his seasonal pies: sugar plum, pumpkin ginger, chocolate peppermint cream. When they come out well, he serves them in the shop, but when they’re the slightest crumb under par, she’ll find him absently eating them out of the tin on the couch, cheeks round and full as a hamster’s as he flips through channels or reads the paper.

She squeezes his hands, then palms his stomach, his sides, where they spill over his belt. “You look great. Dashing, even.”

He smiles down at her, and she lays her head against his chest where his jacket and shirt provide two extra layers between her skin and his. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

It took him quite a while to notice the weight when it started to stick – at least a few months and a good fifteen pounds, Chuck thinks, before he wandered into the living room while she was reading and asked, “Do you think I’ve gained weight?”

She’d looked up at him, closed her book around her finger, and poked the burgeoning softness above his belt with the corner of the spine. “A little. Why?”

He palmed his belly. “Olive did the same thing you just did earlier. With her hand. I would have preferred your hand, of course. Also, my pants are getting a little hard to button, and I thought I’d get a second opinion.”

“How do you feel about it?”

He shrugged. “Not … bad? I kind of like it.”

“Me too,” she said, smiling. “I bet it’s all those late-night snacks you have. All that ice cream.”

Altogether, it isn’t a _lot_ of weight, and he’s tall enough that it looks like less – she guesses thirty pounds, maybe thirty-five if it’s a stressful week. He’s gotten chunky enough around the hips that it’s a struggle to get his pants on every day, a show of jostling and wriggling that Chuck pretends not to watch on the mornings she sleeps over.  

It makes her happy to see him enjoying it. She’s caught him squishing his chub around in the mirror when he thinks she’s not watching, giving his reflection shy little smiles as he grabs at his stomach and tests its weight in his hands. He’s always eager when Chuck wants to feed him rich meals and desserts off the long-handled forks they bought for the occasion, when she wants to touch him once he’s full, and she tries to make it clear how much she loves the weight on him.

“Come on,” she says now, giving his belly a final pat. “Let’s go, it’s almost eight.”

She takes one stack of pies from the counter and carries them out to his car, and he joins her with the second stack a moment later. “Hold on,” he says as she moves to get into the car, and gently brings her gloved hands to his lips.

“Hold still,” she counters. Very carefully, she tilts his head down and kisses the tip of her thumb where it rests on his lower lip. “Almost like the real thing,” she says softly, and he smiles, squeezes her other hand tight.

~

Ned looks overwhelmed by the gala at first. He fidgets, crossing his arms and shifting his weight, adjusting his tie and tugging at his collar. He lowers his gaze when people look like they might be approaching, and hunches his shoulders in.

“You look uncomfortable,” Chuck murmurs as he shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. “Stand up straighter! Tighten your core.”

“My core doesn’t tighten,” he replies, eyes on the crush of people milling through the venue. It’s a reception hall downtown, decked out in rich crimson and gold trappings, everything bright and lush and sparkling. “My core is soft and pliable and gets stiff if you leave it out in the wrong environment for too long, like caramel.”

She exhales a short laugh. “You look like you don’t want to be here. Do you need a drink? There’s champagne …”

He grimaces. “When I started to break even with the profits from the Pie Hole, I decided the best way to celebrate would be with a bottle of champagne and as much Indian takeout as I could carry.”

“What’s wrong with that?” she asks, snagging a glass from a passing waiter.

He tilts his head and adopts the light, deprecating tone he takes when he’s not proud of himself. “I drank the whole thing by myself and passed out stuffed to the gills, and had to close the next day because I was too queasy to get out of bed.”

“Aww, poor you,” she says, looping an arm around his waist and pulling him close. “How long ago was that?”

He thinks. “About five years? Back before I could afford substantial meals on a regular basis.” His hand sneaks up to his tie, tugs it straight over his belly.

“It’s so strange to think that I didn’t know you then.” She sips her champagne, closing her eyes as the bubbles flood down her throat. “Can I get you anything? Wine? Appetizers?”

He nods, taking her glass to free up her hands. “Wine, please. And yes, whatever looks good.”

Chuck thinks everything looks good, so she loads up two plates with little Brie-and-mushroom puff pastries, mini red peppers stuffed with goat cheese, latkes with crème fraîche and dill, cheddar-chutney brioches, lemon-parsley gougères, tiny spinach quiches. She grabs his wine from the bar, balancing one plate on her forearm the way Olive taught her, and makes her way back to Ned.

He’s pressed against the wall, like he’s trying to make himself as small as possible, chewing on his lower lip, and he takes his plate and glass gratefully.

“Thank you,” he says, smiling down at her before biting into one of the brioches. He closes his eyes and tips his head back as he chews, making a little noise like the ones that escape him when Chuck sneaks a hand down between his thighs when they’re making out through a sheet of Saran.

“Good?” she asks, and he nods, mouth full, and he doesn’t say much else until he’s plowed through most of his plate and some of hers, too. He’s looser now, glass of wine drained, cheeks tinged pink. He even sneaks an arm around her waist, maneuvering carefully around the low back of her dress. She lays one of her gloved hands over his and strokes her thumb against the back of his hand.

“Better now,” he says, setting his plate and glass down on the edge of the end table at his left. Several of them have been set out around the room, draped in cranberry cloths and laid out with extra silverware and creamy linen napkins.

“Is there anyone you want to talk to?” she asks, surveying the room for familiar faces. “Look, there’s the guy who owns the Ethiopian place down the street.”

“Yonas?” she adds when he looks at her blankly. “Go tell him how much you like his chechebsa.”

Ned smiles. “You know his name?”

“Mhm,” she replies. “He’s very sweet. Sometimes when we order out I bring him a little blackberry cup pie. I told him how much you like his food.”

“Is that why he always gives us extra sambusas?”

She nods. “When you’re nice to people, they’re nice back. Go be nice to someone. Make some connections.”

His arm tightens a little around her. “I don’t know. They’re all … they’re real chefs, Chuck. I just make pies. I’m like the MVP of Little League trying to get in with the pros. They’re hitting home runs and I … I caught a fly ball by accident once.”

“Don’t be like that,” she says. “I’ve sold your pies to at least half a dozen people in this room. Not everything good has to be fancy. Sometimes you get tired of fancy. The excitement dies down and the luster wears off and you’re left with a big miserable pile of disappointment and disillusion. But that doesn’t happen with pie. Pie is always exactly what you need it to be.”

“You’re exactly what I need you to be,” he murmurs, pulling her closer, and she squeezes his hand at her waist.

“I’m going to go grab another one of those Brie puffs,” she says, “and you find someone to talk to. I’ll come find you, okay?”

“Okay,” he says. “Do you wanna … grab me a couple more hors d’oeuvres?”

“Of course,” she says, handing him her champagne flute, still half full, for safekeeping. “Wine too?”

He nods, and she returns a few minutes later to find him chatting with a tall Korean woman, pointing over her shoulder toward the dessert table.

Chuck smiles at her and exchanges Ned’s plate and glass for her champagne, waiting for a break in the conversation to introduce herself. One of her favorite things is watching Ned come out of his shell to get passionate about something – in this case, how to best bring out the sweetness of fruit in a pie – and she’s not about to interrupt.

“In fact,” he continues, gesturing to Chuck, “my girlfriend –”

“Kitty,” Chuck interjects.

“Kitty,” Ned recovers, “this is Eunbi Jeung. She specializes in dessert dumplings.”

“Nice to meet you,” says Chuck, offering her hand.

“You, too,” says Eunbi. “I like your gloves.”

Chuck smiles. “Family heirloom.”

“Anyway,” Ned says, “Kitty came up with this amazing way to make the fruit in her pies taste even sweeter.”

“It wasn’t all me,” Chuck says, plucking a Brie puff off Ned’s plate. “I got the idea from my mother and aunt.”

“She bakes cheese into the crust,” Ned tells Eunbi, gesturing with a cheddar-chutney brioche. “Peaches and crème de St. Agur, pear and Gruyere, rhubarb and Stilton. It’s really incredible.” He pops a bite of quiche into his mouth and follows it with a sip of wine, and Chuck watches the muscles in his throat work as he swallows.

Eunbi nods. “We have a bleu cheese and fig turnover that follows the same idea. And a recipe a friend recommended to me using mangos and chili salt – we sell it as a tart. It’s amazing how much people love them. I have some on the dessert menu tonight –if you like them, swing by my place uptown sometime. We can swap wares.”

“We’d love that!” says Chuck. “The mango-chili idea sounds delicious – I’ll come in for one of those no matter what.”

Ned nods around a mouthful of brioche, and Eunbi nods too. “So I’m sure I’ll see you around, then - so nice to have met you!”

When she’s gone, Chuck turns to Ned. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“She was very talkative,” he says, pausing with a bite of latke halfway to his mouth. “But it was okay.”

She smiles. “I told you you’d be fine. Now finish your appetizers before dinner starts.” She pats his belly gently. “If you’re gonna have room for dinner after all that.”

She expects him to blush, but instead the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile. “Don’t worry. I plan to have plenty of dinner.”

“Oh, do you,” she says, arching an eyebrow and sipping her champagne.

His eyes crinkle. “We’re at an event specifically dedicated to celebrating food. Nobody will notice if I … put the _full_ in joyful, if you will.”

Her heart jumps a little. Ned almost never initiates things like this - he’s more than happy to acquiesce when she asks, but he’s still too shy to do much of the asking himself.

“Oh, I will,” she assures him. “And I look forward to taking good care of you after we roll you home.”

He laughs, running a hand down the front of his shirt. “I’m hoping these buttons hold out.”

Chuck smiles, a little wicked. “I’m not.”

~

Normally Chuck would delight in making dinner conversation with the people seated around her, but she can’t keep her eyes off Ned, who’s at her left. He heaps his plate with some of every vegetarian dish that comes his way, and begins eating with a vigor that he usually reserves for Chuck’s cooking.

“Pace yourself,” she says softly when he pauses for a sip of wine. “There’s still dessert after this.”

He nods, wiping his mouth with his napkin. In lieu of replying, he loads his fork and takes another bite.

Between bites of her own meal, Chuck squirms. She imagines his tuxedo shirt, strained until gaps begin to show between the buttons. She imagines the creak of the seams of his trousers, taxed by too many midnight snacks and second helpings. She imagines the button of those trousers digging into the underside of his belly, where he’s softest, and finally popping under the effort of containing his bulk. She imagines the moans in the car on the way home, the way his stomach will be pushing out, bloated and smug.

She drains what’s left of her champagne glass.

His first plate goes down easy, and she watches, crossing her legs, as he fills a second one, concentrating on the heavier dishes - potatoes, pastas, thick sauces. She thinks of all the carbs he already packed away from those two appetizer plates and shivers.

When he’s about halfway through his second plate, he pauses and rubs a hand over his stomach. Chuck, engaged in a conversation about raw honey with the girl next to her, snaps to attention when she catches the movement in her periphery.

“Excuse me just a second,” she says to the girl, nodding toward Ned. “He’s got a sensitive stomach - I should check to make sure he’s okay.”

“Oh, no problem,” says the girl. “That’s my zucchini pasta he’s tucking into, and that Havarti-ancho cream sauce is a killer. There’s a ton of heavy cream and butter in there. Check on him all you want.”

Chuck’s fairly sure she turns the same color as the beet hummus on her plate. “I’d better. It sounds absolutely divine.”

She lowers her voice when she turns to face Ned. “How are you doing?” she asks, slipping a hand under the table to rub his thigh. “Feeling okay?”

He nods. “I feel like I’ve reached some kind of nirvana where I’ve become nothing but taste buds, a stomach, and a steady flow of dopamine.”

“Ooh, keep talking,” she says, squeezing his thigh. “Even better: keep eating.”

“Starting to feel a little heavy,” he says, brushing his hand over his stomach again. She notices with a little zing of excitement that it’s pushing a little farther over his waistband than she remembers. “Might go for thirds on this pasta, though.”

Chuck takes a deep breath, nods, and turns back to her neighbor.

“You _have_ to share your recipe for that pasta and cream sauce,” she says, fighting to keep her voice even. “Ned’s waxing poetic about having reached nirvana over there, so you must be working some kind of magic.”

“Absolutely,” says the girl, “let me grab your email address and I can shoot it right over to you. Glad your guy’s enjoying it.”

Chuck jots down her email address on a napkin and lets herself dream for a split second about adding an extra stick of butter to the recipe.

By the time Ned clears his third plate - this one solely devoted to a helping of zucchini pasta that Chuck could easily call a dinner on its own - he’s starting to flag. His mouthfuls are smaller and farther between, and his breathing is getting heavier as he continues to eat.

“Got room for dessert?” she asks, gently prodding at his muffin top.

He muffles a burp behind his napkin. “I do, but I might not be able to stand up afterward.”

“Hey,” she says, stroking down the side of his belly. “I wasn’t kidding about rolling you home. I’m ready.”

He smiles and stifles another burp. “Everything is so rich,” he says, meeting her gloved hand with his own bare one. “I think I’ve gained ten pounds in the past half hour.”

“Mmmm, I hope so.”

He twists the last strands of pasta around his fork and drags the bundle through the remaining cream sauce on his plate. Once he finishes chewing, he lets out a sigh and leans back in his seat, spreading his legs.

“Good news,” says Chuck, squeezing his hand. “Zucchini Girl is going to send me this recipe.”

Ned groans and chases it with a hiccup. “I’m going to get so fat. You’re going to have to roll me everywhere.”

She tweaks the swell of flab creeping over his waistband. “Ready and willing.”

As dessert is served, she catches him fiddling with the button of his trousers. “What’re you doing there?” she asks, and he glances at her guiltily.

“They’re so tight,” he whines. “I’ll have to unbutton them after dessert. Unless they burst before that.”

Chuck sucks in a deep breath. “For the sake of your modesty, I’m resisting all of my related impure thoughts.”

“Thank you.”

When she looks back from choosing her own treats, his plate is crammed with four sizable slices of varied cakes and pies, an assortment of cookies, and a mound of something that looks like rice pudding.

“Don’t make yourself sick for me,” she warns in an undertone.

He picks up his fork. “I won’t. I’ll be fine.”

Even so, he moves through the desserts more slowly than his entrees. He seems to be savoring them more, making pleased faces and satisfied noises that have Chuck blushing and squirming in her seat.

“Your guy’s got a big appetite, hmm?” says the girl next to her, and Chuck almost whimpers.

“The biggest,” she agrees, and downs her glass of ice water in a couple quick sips.

“What’s that?” she asks Ned, whose mouth is full. He’s working clockwise around his plate, alternating bites of everything he’s piled on, and he’s made impressive progress for being as full as he is. Only a couple slices of cake remain alongside the pudding, and a cookie or two.

He swallows the mouthful, lets out a little _mmm_ of pleasure. She can practically see his stomach swelling with each bite of food. “Blueberry-limoncello cheesecake.”

“And that?”

“Caramel rice pudding.”

“And that?”

“Coconut cake with … salted chocolate icing?”

“And _those_?”

“Raspberry-Nutella butter cookies. The texture, Chuck, you wouldn’t believe - there has to be at least two sticks of butter in these.”

She smirks. “Right up my alley.”

Ned nods. “I’m going to go into some kind of carbohydrate shock.”

“Just stay awake enough for me to get you to the car.” His eyelids are getting a little heavy, she thinks. She’s lost track of how much wine he’s had, on top of all that food.

“Tall order,” he says, shoveling down another bite of cake. He groans softly as he leans toward the table, and Chuck shifts, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs.

“Doing okay?”

He pushes out a long breath. “I am disgustingly, incapacitatingly stuffed.”

“It’s okay if you can’t finish.”

“No, I can.” He inhales, his breath hitching. “Ow. Too full to do that.”

“Does it hurt?”

He hiccups. “A little. The wine is helping. I might have another glass to take the edge off.”

When the wine arrives, he slugs it back like it’s water and attacks the final pieces of dessert on his plate. He doesn’t have trouble getting them down, but he punctuates each bite with soft grunts and whines that have Chuck raring to get him home and touch him _right this second_.

She watches as he slips the last morsels of rice pudding into his mouth, and as he lays his fork on his empty plate, he turns to give her a triumphant, if sleepy, grin. Then he winces, his hand moving to his stomach like it’s been yanked by a magnet. “Oh. Ohhhh. One more glass of wine - this got a little more uncomfortable.”

He drains it in several long sips, and immediately signals the waiter again. His cheeks are more flushed than Chuck has ever seen them.

“Feel okay?” she asks as he gulps from his refilled glass. “I’ve never seen you drink this much.”

He nods slowly. “Just feels nice. Warm. Heavy. So … heavy. Besides, wine’s a good excuse for” - he burps, bringing his hand to his mouth a little belatedly - “having trouble walking.”

“Good thinking,” she says. “Just don’t have too much trouble, because I’ve got to get all two hundred and forty-five pounds of you out to the car.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “I love that you know how much.”

“I love every single pound of it. But I can’t carry it all to the car. Are you feeling like standing?”

He spreads his legs farther, groans. He’s tremendously bloated, and she can see the buttons of his shirt gaping behind his tie when he shifts in his seat. But it isn’t until he begins teasing the tip of his tie with his fingers that she realizes something else.

“When did you lose your button?” she whispers, leaning closer to him.

He hiccups loudly. “Dessert sometime?”

“Oh, Ned …” She wants wildly to touch him, but she reels herself back in. “We should get you home. Say our goodbyes and roll on out.”

“You say goodbyes,” he says, thumbing his waist where the button of his trousers used to be. “I’ll wait here.”

She moves through the room quickly, collecting armfuls of praise for his pies that she’ll unspool for him tomorrow, when he can focus on it.

When he does finally stand up, he’s unsteady, pulled off balance by the wine and the enormous amount of food in his belly. He hangs onto her arm and sways at her side, taking measured steps to accommodate his shift in equilibrium.

He flops into the passenger seat of the car so heavily that she sees it dip toward the pavement. He fumbles with his seat belt until he gets it in place, and by the time she’s settled into the driver’s seat, he’s leaning his head against the window.

“Feel okay?” she asks again.

He nods. “Sleepy.”

“I bet.”

He prods at his stomach and lets out a thick belch. “’M gonna burst.”

“You don't feel sick at all, do you?”

He shrugs lazily. “No, I'm okay.”

“As soon as we get home,” says Chuck, “I'll make you feel better.”

Once they get home, Ned hauls himself out of the car with a groan and braces himself against the lightpost. His eyelids are even heavier now, and Chuck smirks as she positions herself to steady him.

“Feeling all that wine now, hmm?”

He nods, hiccuping. “I want to lie down, please.”

“In a few minutes, I promise.”

He lolls against the wall of the elevator, belly swelling out in front of him like a beach ball, too round for him to button his jacket over it, and as soon as Chuck gets the front door unlocked, he shuffles into his bedroom and flops onto his back.

She hangs up her coat, then follows him. “You wanna shed a few layers before you get comfortable?”

He shakes his head, but she sits beside him on the bed and helps him sit up. She gently removes his coat and tosses it to the end of his bed, then props his pillows against the headboard.

“Let me get out of this dress,” she says, “and then we can get started.”

She shucks her evening gown and trades it for an old flannel of Ned’s, a pair of leggings, and thick socks up to her knees for extra protection against accidental touching. She leaves her gloves on, and then settles on Ned’s thighs. He looks like he might be dozing, but he perks up when he feels her sit down.

He offers her a lazy smile and works down the zipper of his pants, rubbing his stomach as it spills into the open space. “Not coming on to you,” he says, the words stumbling together. “Just … more comfortable.”

She giggles. “You can come on to me all you want, I just don’t think you’re in the best position to make a move right now.”

“Please,” he says, a hiccup jarring his body. “Make a move on me. Please, Chuck, touch me.”

She runs her hands over the expanse of his stomach, drinking in how taut and round it is under his layer of fat. Even the parts of him that usually stay soft when he’s bloated are stretched tight, every spare inch of him full of food. She loosens his tie, slips it over his head, and relishes the sight of his strained button-down before she strips his jacket and undoes his buttons.

His stomach gurgles, and she adds a little pressure, rubbing wide circles over his skin. She can feel how warm he is through her gloves, and she tugs his shirt back over the crest of his belly so she can press kisses onto it.

“Mmmm,” he says, his head lolling to one side. “That feels good.”

“Good.” She prods the spot below his navel, and he burps, belly jumping a little. He sighs, sinking further back into his pillows, and she splays her hands and smooths them over the his sides, over the curves above his waistband. “Look at you,” she soothes, tapping her fingers along his skin. “You were so good tonight. You must have been hungry, hmm?”

He nods sleepily. “Wanted to do it for you.”

Her chest warms up. “You’re sweet.” She trails another string of kisses down his stomach. “It was a very, _very_ exciting holiday surprise.”

He smiles. “Good. Sorry I’m too sleepy to get off with you.”

“That can wait. I’m pretty sure you’ll still be full tomorrow.”

She starts rubbing circles into his belly again, and he closes his eyes, lets out a long sigh of contentment, followed by a low belch.

“Very cute,” says Chuck, millimeters away from kissing the underside of his belly where it’s pushed out over his trousers.

He shifts a little, trying to give her a better angle, and his stomach sloshes.

“Mmm,” says Chuck through a kiss. “Listen to you. You might not even be able to move by tomorrow.”

He rolls his hips, groaning softly at the movement, and his stomach gurgles again. “Good,” he mumbles. “We can stay in bed all day. You can nurse my hangover.”

“You should have water,” she says. “Before you fall asleep. Can you fit a couple glasses of water in there?”

 

His hand goes to his belly, and Chuck pulls back instinctively. “Water’s probably okay.”

“I’ll grab you some,” she says, untangling herself from him. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He huffs out a laugh.

She brings back two glasses of water and a couple aspirin. “Those’ll help with the stomachache you’re going to have tomorrow. Drink those slowly, okay?”

The water makes his stomach slosh even more, but he makes it through both glasses as she takes off her makeup and brushes her teeth.

“You should take those pants off,” she says once she’s finished. “Those aren’t going to be comfortable to sleep in.”

He hiccups. “I will. It’s just going to happen very slowly.”

She watches as he manages to change into his pajama pants with the smallest amount of movement possible, barely even lifting himself off the bed. He finally hauls himself upright, still swaying a little, and makes his way to the bathroom with his button-down still hanging open around his belly. His posture is all off, back arched to accommodate the weight of his stomach, and Chuck thrills a little as she watches him brush his teeth with all his weight braced against the doorframe, too full to even stand up properly.

When he lumbers back to bed, Chuck tosses him a T-shirt. “You can take off all your formalwear now, Tubby. No need to wear your tuxedo shirt into bed.”

He laughs. “I’ve heard some people like that.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” she says, moving to give his bare belly a final pat. “I loved seeing that button-down strain around all your bulk, and seeing it hang down and frame that big belly of yours. But get comfy, it’s bedtime. That starched collar’s going to be poking you all night.”

He tugs on the T-shirt, its material straining against his stomach, and she leans over to kiss him through the thin cotton. “Come here, let me hold you. You must be sleepy.”

She crawls onto her side of the bed and slips her arm into the sleeve of the plastic sleeve, and waits as he rolls onto his side and inches himself up against her, moaning at the movement.

“You good?” she asks once he stops squirming.

“Yeah. I found a good spot.” He sighs as she curls her arm around him. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“I loved every second. I can’t wait to spend tomorrow spooning you until you can move again.”

“If you’re offering indefinite spooning,” he says, “I may never move again.”

“Perfect.”

With what appears to be significant difficulty, he rolls onto his other side so that he’s facing her. “Hey,” he says softly, moving to simulate brushing her hair from her face. “You’re the best, you know that?”

She smiles, kissing his nose through the plastic. “I am the best, and I have the best.”


End file.
